Porte's European Sojourn - the fourth letter home
Good morning from Porte’s hometown of Martinsburg, West Virginia where we’re expecting good dog walking weather today. Some sunshine is the forecast and highs are expected to be in the low 40s. Our Ornery Dog Jasper likes things on the cool side and I do, too.
I’ve got another in the series of letters that Porte wrote while touring Europe as a young man — well before he became Porte-famous. But first I wanted you to be aware that the PCAS may be more hit or miss than usual over the next couple of months. I’m working on a separate newsletter with my partner Dave Mistich. We’re tracking the activities of the West Virginia Legislature. State lawmakers started their regular 60 day session earlier this week.
Our newsletter is called 60 Days and we publish daily each weekday morning. It’s aimed at giving readers a heads up as to what lawmakers will be getting up to on any given day. If you have a mind, you can subscribe here.
60 Days is going to eat up a lot of my free time over the next couple of months. Between it and my day job at NPR, something is going to have to give. It will have to be the PCAS.
I’ll do my best to send you something Portey every other week or so. But if you really want to hear from me on a regular basis, subscribe to 60 Days. The PCAS will return to a more or less regular schedule this spring.
All that said, I’m planning to present as many of the letters Porte wrote about his travels in Europe that I can find. I understand there are 13 of them. I’ll pass them along as I dig them up.
We’ve had a number of new members join this fake society in recent days. If you need to catch up, here are links to the first three I’ve published here:
Below you’ll find a transcript of the fourth letter Porte wrote home while traveling through France. It was published in the pages of the old Martinsburg, Gazette on July 8, 1841 and finds our hero on the road to Chalons …
Pen and Ink Sketches of an Artist
April, 1841.
I travelled from Paris to Chalons on the Saone in the diligence, a distance of about 220 English miles. These vehicles (a diligence) are easier in their motion than our stage-coaches, but they travel very slowly, and are miserably crowded—much less space being allowed for each passenger than is comfortable. The country is pretty, highly cultivated, and dotted with towns and villages innumerable. From each hamlet and group of cottages rises a little Gothic spire, which in the distance has a very pleasant effect. Auxerre and AvalIon are the only towns of any note on this route, the former containing about 12,000 inhabitants, and several churches which are worth a visit. Every town and village has in or about it a pleasant promenade, planted with fine trees and shrubbery, which partially relieves the disagreeable impression made by their extreme filth and ugliness. In the landscape, their appearance is picturesque, but on entering the streets, you find them like the vilest suburb of a European city, which is several shades beyond what we know of in the United States.
At Chalons we took the steamboat for Lyons. The steamers on the Saone ate very small, but handsomely furnished and rapid travellers. The scenery on its banks is rather pretty, but not striking until you approach Lyons, when it becomes very bold. For many miles above this city, you see the marks of the great flood which took place last winter. The desolution is really pitiable; villages, magazines and budges lying in waste, vineyards destroyed, and the whole low country bearing marks of the fury of the water. Lyons itself suffered severely. This is a fine city, the second in France in importance and population. It contains about 160,000 inhabitants. I like the sombre, massive buildings of Lyons much better than the light, gaudy stylo of the new poition of Paris. The promenades are delightful, and the theatre (I always judge of the refinement of a city bv the style of its theatre) is veiy good indeed. 1 regret not being able to seo more of Lyons, but I was obliged to hurry on. The steamers between Lyons and Avignon are considered very fine here, but would compare very poorly with our floating palaces on the Western waters. The Rhone, however, is a noble river ; and if it has not the terrible majesty of the Mississippi, it has more beauty, and its bold pointed rocks, and rich pebble girt islands make you forget the calm, placid charms of the Ohio. But the principal attractions of the Rhone far exceed any of these. Each highland, each jutting point, each giddy precipice is crowned with some stately ruin of the middle ages.
“Some grin old tower, whose embattled front has braved for centuries the trumpet's wrath; Some ruined wall, over whose crumbling stones The ivy creepeth—"
You cannot conceive of the picturesque beanty of these old castles. They seem grouped and located especially for a painting, and you scarcely have time to regret one interesting view fading in the distance, before you ara startled by another more beautiful. The city of Avignon and its environs crown the whole on a tremendous isolated rock. Overhanging the city and the river stands the palace of the popes who had their seat in this city about the commencement of the fourteenth century. Around the base of this rock run the rampatts of the city. The view from the height is magnificent. Beneath and around you are the brown towers and fortifications of the town, washed by the rapid Rhone, who winds his sinuous way through a lovely plain and around a hundred islands, until he is lost in distant hills. On the opposite side of the river are towers and chateaux built in the palmy days of Avignon, but now in ruins, and far in the distance beyond all rises Mount Veutoux, an advanced sentinel of the Alps, whose head glitters with eternal snow. In Avignon is the tomb of Laura, and near it (about 13 miles distant) is the celebrated fountain of Vaucluse, immortalized by Petrarch. Independent of its poetical associations, this fountain is well worthy of a visit. The road lies through the lovely plain of Comptat, smiling with the olive and vine, and refreshed by limpid brooks, winding in every direction. In the face of a rugged mountain at some distance, you remark chasm, from whence issues a little river. This, you are told, is the place of the fountain, and its approach excites some expectations. You enter the chasm by a road winding under a great rock, und proceed until you reach a small village, where your horses or vehicle is left. From here a rocky path leads to the fountain.— There a most extraordinary scene bursts upon the view. On three sides rise perpendicular cliffs - to an immense height, almost shutting out the light of the sun; and nature in her freaks has shaped these wild crags so much like ruined towers, that it requires a close observation to assure yourself that they are not. From ihe base of the rock in front gushes the fountain, sufficient in body form a small river, which descends about 60 feet, in the distance of 150 yards, over rocks and pebbles, forming a torrent of foam ns white as snow. There is a narrow border between the cliffs and the stream, of shrubberyy, grass, and moss-covered rocks, where the poet was wont to pass his days dreaming of his love. Some say he was thinking more of the effect his last sonnet would have on the world, than the subject of it—which is very possible. At the foot of this descent is a rock, through which is a subterranean passage, supposed to have been washed by the fountain before it formed its present outlet. On the top of this height is a ruined chateau, and beneath its shadow a cottage and garden, said to be the veritable residence of Petrarch. Here too is the laurel which he cherished, for the resemblance its name bore to that of his beloved. The cottage looks in marvellous good repair, and the laurel very young for their age; but one gains nothing by doubting, so we will even believe it. That tall building which overshadows the cot and the garden, anti partially turns the stream from its course, is a paper mill. Alas, for the days of romance!
It was late when we returned to Avignon from this delightful excursion, but I could not leave without taking a sketch of the bridge and chapel of St. Benezet. This bridge, of which there are but four arches remaining, is a wreck of the architecture of the 12th century. On the second pier, and hanging over the water, is a chapel, which altogether is of so wild and strange a character, that you are irresistibly led to inquire concerning its origin. Who built ihe bridge, whose stately arches fill us with admiration? why is the chapel placed in the midst of the foaming torrent? Hear the legend of the land. Many years ago, the lord knows how long, there was a little shepherd who watched his mother's sheep in the plains of Provence. The flock of sheep was the widow's sole dependence, and the boy, who was her only child, tended them with great care and assiduity. He neither piped nor sung like the other shepherds, nor did he join in their sports and dances ; but on the contrary, he was pale and thoughtful, and there was a wildness his largo black eye that was scarcely earthly. One day, as he was running under some fig trees, as was his custom, he fell asleep. The sheep wandered away, and were returned to the widow's fold by some unknown person, but her son returned no more. Several days afterwards, while the Bishop of Avignon was preaching the gospel to his flock, he was interrupted in his discourse by the voice of a child. All Iooked with astonishment at the intruder and saw a shepheid boy holding his crook in his hand, and covered with dust and signs of travel. He appeared ready to sink with fatigue, but his countenance was full of ingenuous assurance, and he showed not the slightest perturbation at the presence and astonishment of the multitude. On being asked wbat he wanted, he answered in a bold voice. l am sent by the master to build a bridge across the Rhone; wretch durst thou blaspheme even before the altar? And the Bishop, who was wroth at being interrupted in his sermon, ordered him to be delivered to a magistiate, and punished as a malefactor. Tha people followed mocking, but the boy was not embarrassed by this reception, and in the presence of the magistrate, insisted with the same confidence, on the truth of his mission. Miserable shepherd! said the vigueur, dost thou undertake what Charlemagne himself feared to do, but if thou wilt, there is a stone wherewith to lay lay corner, if thou canst carry it to the river. The boy shouldered the stone with ease, which the strength of 30 strong men would not have sufficed to move, and followed by the amazed multitude, carried it to the river, and deposited it on the spot where the work was to be commenced. The people, and first of all, the Bishop, fell down upon their knees and hailed him as a messenger of God; and immediately priest and people set about the work with all their energy. Benezet became a saint, and spent his life for the realization of his noble dream, which however he never lived to see. The bridge being finished some time after his death, and the people holding in grateful remembrance its founder, named it after him, built the chapel to his memory, and deposited therein his mortal remains. History verities it all but the miracles. The Avignonites some time in the 12th century, were actualIv induced to commence the work by the enthusiasm of a shepherd boy named Benezet. It is silent, however, about the big stone. In this chapel, masses are celebrated for the souls of those who perish by water. Here the mothers and wives of the mariners come to pray for the safety and speedy return of a son or husband, and here when the sun sets fiery red, and the storm-clouds are gathering on the horizon, is heard the voice of their supplications, mingling with the roar of the mighty river.
I left Avignon with much regret. We started at six in the.evening, and the next morning at sunrise, we came in sight of the rock-bound port of Marseilles, and the deep blue waters of the Mediterranean. What a change! from a land where the very stones breathed of romance, to such a den of tarpaulins as Marseilles. The fumes of tar and the oaths of all the nations on the earth, soon dissipated the poetry which I had inhaled in Provence. A curious place is the Quai of Marseilles—a peifect Babel as to languages, and with a collection of biped animals that would enrich a menagerie. There were swarthy Moors, Turks, English, Germans, Russians, Spaniards and Italians. As I was gazing at some Greeks, whose costumes and faces I thought would be fine for a picture of a corsair, I stumbled against a bale of cotton. “ D—d lubber will fall into the dock,” said a sailor. I looked up and saw the star-spangled banner floating from the mizzen gaff of the finest vessel in the harbur. I took off my hat and saluted it, which appeared to please Jack amazingly. Of my trip from Marseilles to Florence l will write some other time.